GIRL CITIZENS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 69, 18 February 1939, Page 14

GIRL CITIZENS.

VISIT OF IMISS JEAN CAMPBELL. One of the many departments of the Y.W.C.A. and one of the most important is the Girl Citizens department, which caters for the girl between the ages of 13 and 15 years. This department is of the utmost importance for three reasons: (1) The Girl Citizen is the youth of to-day but the citizen of to-morrow; (2) she needs and enjoys companions of her own age and interests; (3) it broadens the outlook of a girl to belong to a movement that is world-wide and which develops this outlook through programmes and correspondents. Tlie Y.W.C.A., with its four-fold purpose, aims at the all-round development- of the girl—a sound mind and a healthy body, ready to face the future with confidence. As far as possible this movement is self-governing, the girls planning and carrying out the weekly programmes, which include physical culture, dramatics, folk dancing, singing, handcrafts and ceremonials. The outdoor life at the club offers tramps, picnics, camps, basketball, tennis and baseball. Girl Citizen communities are to be found in nine centres in New Zealand. This movement is extremely fortunate in having as its organiser for New Zealand Miss Jean Campbell, late of the Vancouver Y.W.C.A. who brings to New Zealand a wealth of new ideas for programmes and camps. Miss Campbell is a graduate of the University of British Columbia. As a post-graduate course she took her diploma in social science. As a Y.W.C.A. secretary Miss Campbell has had a remarkably wide experience of conferences and training institutes, sharing the opportunities of the Girl Reserve Movement in the neighbouring States of the United States. Miss Campbell has on three occasions been privileged to attend the great National Conference of Social Work organised in the United States and in Canada, and in 1938' in addition to the Social Work Conferences, she was a delegate at the World’s Youtn Congress held at Vassar College, and at the World's Council of the Y.W.C.A. held in the Muskoka District.

Miss Campbell’s group work with girls has covered a wide range—including groups of Canadian girls in training (the programme for younger girls’ groups within the churches); groups of secondary school girls in the high schools and commercial colleges of Vancouver; groups of young girls employed in shops and offices and household occupations.

Miss Campbell will be visiting Palmerston North at the end of _ the month, and the present Girl Citizens are busy with plans for a “movie hall” at which Miss Campbell will bo the guest of honour.